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[Guide] Mordekaiser - Death Knight

Greetings folks. After a solid week of play with Mordekaiser, and a good W/L ratio, I feel it important to share success and failure with the community to clarify where Mordekaiser fits.

Is he a tank? NO and YES. You can tank with him, but you have to base it around lifesteal + sheild building. Why do I say no? He has absolutely no snares/stuns/disables/displacements. In other words, he soaks damage with no type of crowd control.

He is essentially a tank/dps hybrid. On top of that he is a magic/phys hybrid under the dps column. Crazy right? I thought so too. So where do we begin...

At the beginning: Runes and Masteries.

OK for me I take crit chance reds, however, I am migrating to attack speed to compliment my masteries. For seals, dodge. You are in the thick of things and dodge increases survivability exponentially. Glyphs, I am currently running MR/lvl. I also like flat MR, but regardless some type of resist to toughen you up. Lastly, Quints I use flat HP. Can't underestimate the beefy early lane phase.

For masteries I run a weird setup: 8/22/0. I like getting attack speed in offensive tree, and the extra point to top out my damage reduction in defensive. You could easily spend the point in improved ghost if you like it. Up to you. No I don't get archaic knowledge, but it is a good buy as well.

One last starting point and the game is on: Flash + Ignite. I like ignite with this hero as it synergizes VERY well with your ulti. Sadly your ult doesn't do ALOT of damage after magic resist, but Ignite plus this dot means that anyone below 15% health you can dot/rot and start beating on something else. Learn to get a kill with your ult. Your pet is the best tower pusher simply because it equals another auto attack champ. Even better than tibbers, trust me!

OK now to the game.

Start items: Doran's sheild + health pot. This is the open. Don't try boots. You can do just regrowth pendant, but honestly, you will regret not being as beefy as it encourages extra harassment. Also doran's gives you alot of health regen to keep ya up.

Mos
Mos - at rank 3 has the same cooldown as SoD, this is important
CD - at rank 2, this skill is like a sunfire cloak, very good to have
SoD
Ulti - lvl 11

Sod - MAX
CD
CD
CD - MAX
Ulti - lvl 16

Mos
Mos - Max

So why the funky skill order. Well, it works for starters. But why it works is what makes it important. At rank 3 SoD will 1/2 fill your shield on 3 minions. At rank 1 MoS will 1/2 fill your bar on 3 minions. Full bar around every 6 seconds is important to us. This is why we get MoS to rank 3 asap after SoD is rank 3. We want sheild early as it gives us more damage, AND sheild on pet gets more kills/tower pushes than you can imagine. Get it early and learn to love it.

Game Strategies:

Laning Phase:

You own here. Not even Sivir or Singed can push like you can, as early as you can. At level 2 you can clear creep waves in under 10 seconds solo. But here's the magic, all of your abilities have a 'ranged' element to them. Learn to get creeps AND champions as often as possible. Now you're not just pushing, your harrasing, pushing, AND farming. A high creep kill count is important to Mordekaiser so make sure you last hit ALOT. At level 6 you need a kill and a tower crush. Sometimes if the other guy is really defensive this has to wait till 8ish or even another lane. But with harassment, ulti, and ignite, you should get a kill and a push with your lane mate.

Post Lane / Mid-Game:

Here you roam freely. I personally make it my goal to kill each outter turret. After mine is down, I move to another lane and push it in. Then move to another. After that, you should roll with 1-2 team mates at all times as you have no escape mechanism. Keep farming, get neutrals if creep waves are too far out. Visit the dragon often, it's a free tower gold/xp for your team. Everytime you participate in a gank, try to land your ult, get a pet and crush a tower. 3 Good ganks and you could be staring at an inhibitor and possibly a /surrender.

Late Game:

Here is where the rubber meets the road. At this point you will be dealing good damage, and with lifesteal and sheild charge you can take alot of damage as well. Sunfire + CD turn you into an Amumu with AE mace attack and AE cone attack. Basically you are a giant metal fireball that freezes everything you touch with your frozen mallet. Always try to land ignite + ulti, your pet is what turns the game and pushes in towers. Learn to use ALT + Right Click to sick your pet on heroes, OR just have it hit the tower 5-6 times before it dies. At the end game, your pet may actually do more melee damage than you, especially if you get their carry with it.

So now you have won your first (or 50th) game with Mordekaiser. Congrats. Keep these things in mind and you should always perform well, if not carry your team:

1. You own the early lane, even 2v1. You may have to fight under your tower, but the creeps don't live long enough to let them do any damage to your tower AND your sheild is always full so harrasment is a non-factor.

2. You are tough, really tough. You are not invincible, so do not commit to a fight that is unwinnable. You will learn to gauge these. The scale is different for mord simply because he is the only character with a form of lifesteal based off spell damage.

3. Master ulti + ignite. YOU HAVE TO. Sadly the ulti is not uber powerful for damage, even with AP build. You drop these two on someone below 20% health though (even tanks) and you will get a kill in 8 seconds (unless they cleanse). Often in team fights, once I see someone running and I stack both on them, I turn to another threat and just wait for my pet to come along and help me clean up the rest.

4. Smart laning. Do not overextend. Buy some wards. Mordekaiser is very easily ganked as he has NO escape abilities. He has no disables/snares/slows or anything of the like. With that in mind, once someone gets on you, it's ussually best to stand and fight. You can typically last long enough for help to get there, or for the other guy to figure out you won't run and give them free hits so they go away.

5. Improvise. Many games I start out with my normal build and I have to move to a semi-anti-caster build. Ussually a force of nature is enough. Sometimes I have to get it AND banshees. Know that the bulk of your damage comes from lasting longer than most in team fights, and your abilities are cheap and on short cooldowns. This means just be patient. This is also why frozen mallet is a vital part of my builds. Once you get ahold of something, they have to either duke it out, or die crawling away from you.